Thursday, October 02, 2008

Shameless plug: recycled-upcycled mini books with vintage pages. Perfect for Ali's week in the life project, perfect for a gratitude journal, perfect gifts. :) The Christmas ones would be great for adding recipe cards with holiday recipes or journaling your traditions.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Give your kids some imagination kits! Yesterday we went to Seattle for Keston's check-up at Children's Hospital. (She had heart defects as a baby - VSD and pulmonary stenosis.) On the way to the hospital, we stopped at one of our favorite little gems, the Creation Station.

The shop is full of all kinds of recycled odds and ends, perfect for kids to imagine and create with. They were green before it was ever cool. There is a whole shop full of supplies to buy, or you can stuff a bag for a set price. OR, you can go into the Creating Room for a couple of hours, use everything in the room, to�let your kids up-cycle�to their heart's content.

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I purchased some extra, and have four Imagination Kits to give away to you, my lovely readers! Let your kids go wild, and put your feet up and read a few blogs. Leave a comment if you want one, I'll have the kids pick some winners next week. I think it is my two year blog birthday anyway, so that works nicely. Because the blog law says you must give away presents on the blog birthday.

And an update: Keston's tests indicated that her VSD (hole in her heart) is completely healed, and her stenosis is much milder than her last visit. And as of yesterday, she doesn't even need antibiotics before dental visits. Woohoo!!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Should you have any scrubbing, wiping, or shining to do, I strongly suggest this. Safe and natural, good for the earth, and will make your home smell terrific. (And because I am a bit of a label junkie). And I dare say, five times better than Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Lemon Verbena. My house is ever so sparkly right now.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Up early to garage sale with Mady. Our goal - fun outdoor toys for summer.

We love deer! Spotted them on our travels.

Trying out the new edger, my 50 cent bargain!

A guy delivered these from his mother's estate sale. Turns out his mother, Lucille, worked for years and years at Ma Bell in our town as an operator. So did my grandmother! These lockers were out of the Ma Bell cafeteria, for the employees to store their things. Lucille's husband rescued them during a renovation, and took them home, where they have been in the basement for 35 years. I wonder if my grandma ever kept her purse in there? I hope to make them look something like this. (Scroll down a bit).

I have a thing about getting garage sale or thrifted stuff taken care of or put away right away, so as to not have it pile up. Keston took this photo of me pumping up the new-to-us ball. It needed some cleaning and TLC.

Putting away the Shiny Brites. A big bag of them for a quarter! They were also Lucille's. :)

The TLC paid off, the kids love the giant ball.

We call this a 'buns nap' - when a kid sleeps on my buns so that we can nap or cuddle on the couch together. Photo by Mady.

Frank is sweet to empty the dishwasher whenever he notices it needs done. When he forgets where stuff goes, he sets it on the counter for me to finish up. I thought the colors were pretty all together.

An easy dinner. The first time I went to Andi's house, she made these for us for lunch. Grilled cheese with avacado on sourdough.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Each spring, just before summer gets into full swing, we make a list of all the things we want to do in the summer months. Then we fill it all into a calendar, just to make sure we get to do everything we want, without the days slipping by.

{To make your own list, start by looking in the Sunday papers for ads of local events, and then look to your Parks Department for free activities and community events.} Click on the links I have added, there are lots of great ones!

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Yummy lunch! Just kidding. This is our little earth day project. The kids layered a bit of backyard soil, a plastic bag, a little more soil, then lots of junk! The junk is from our compost bucket... and this bit includes a crayon wrapper, oranges and rinds, candy wrappers, coffee cup, coffee filter and grounds, scrap of fabric, dead twigs and leaves, weeds, microwave popcorn bag, onion skins, little pieces of cardboard, a lemon piece, and rotting jalapeno. (You could use any assorted food scraps, paper towels, etc). Make sure to add "brown matter" such as twigs and dead leaves.

Put it all in a big jar with holes in the lid for aeration. Shake it up a little, every few days or so. Have your kids make predictions, then watch what happens. PS - which of this trash do you think I was very personally responsible for? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't the fruit. :)

Saturday, January 05, 2008

What is wrong with me? Tonight I dug through my trash, and pulled out rotting sweet potatoes, coffee filters and grounds, grapefruit rinds, a paper coffee cup, and microwave popcorn bags. Gross.

I seem to have some kind of obsessive recycling-green girl problem! I've recyled for as long as I've been a home-owner. Pretty much just figured it was the responsible thing to do, since they give you the bins and all! When Al Gore got involved, the green movement lost it's appeal to me, so I just held steady with my three little bins, but no more. But now, I Am Out Of Control! Digging through the garbage on a Saturday night.

Maybe I had a little bug for it already, and then I came across Sara Snow on TV, Trader Joe's opened (with their fabulous preservative-free-ness) and I simultaneously realized that I want to be sure I'm doing the best I can for my family's health. And now I am in this mess of sorting garbage and following my kids around to turn off the lights behind them.

I've just made my own 'natural' dishwasher detergent (and rinse aid, people!), and laundry soap, and have all the ingredients and recipes waiting for when my other cleaning supplies (already pretty natural) run out. I am sharing a food waste (compost) trash bin with my neighbor (hence the dumpster diving tonight), and last night I crocheted a baby hat out of organic cotton. I had to re-arrange my garage to accommodate extra space for more bins to recycle. I am deciding which types of plants to buy for my kids' rooms to ensure the air is good when they sleep. My wet laundry is all spread out in my tiny laundry room, in hopes that some air drying will cut down the length of time I need to use the dryer. I buy more organic food than not. At Target today, I whipped out my cloth bag and declined their plastic. I am not sure what might happen to me. Once I become passionate about these things, it is hard to stop me. Does anyone remember when I started scrapbooking a couple years ago? I think this is the same passion. Please stop me before I start liking granola. Which I don't. Because I like Pop-Tarts.

Friday, June 01, 2007

Mady is in middle school this year. That is an interesting concept all in itself. Something we've noticed this year is how much she has been influenced by others. It is incredible! And scary.

Among Mady's recent interests is the environment. And being a vegetarian, and all things green. I've seen her literally hugging trees in the backyard. So since I've had to disagree with her on so many topics lately, I thought this was a good one to support her in. You know, choose your battles, still gain some respect.

I read on a blog that "low-impact week" is June 1 - 7. You can read about it here. The basis of it is to reduce your impact on the earth for the week, and possibly develop some longer-lasting habits. We can do that. And support Mady in the process. After I read the list of suggestions, I realized we weren't doing as poorly as I had thought. Tons of room for improvement though! The purpose of low-impact week seems to be improving, not being perfect. Definitely we can do that. It's not likely that I'll be trading in the 7 seater Explorer anytime soon though. Or going without a fridge.

But right now, we do recycle a lot at home. Our bins are full at every pick-up, usually with more recycling in our own containers next to it. We could probably do better in the paper recycling department. Mady and I are vegetarians already. Also, a lot of things I do for purely frugal reasons, but turns out they are better for the environment too. Instead of juice boxes in the kids' lunch everyday (so much waste and expensive!) they get one water bottle a week and re-use it. I fill it with juice or chocolate milk or just water, and we wash it out for a week, then start a new one. I think I read about plastic bottles breaking down and getting bacteria growth after time. So still it is wasteful, but an improvement on what we used to do. I love to thrift shop - turns out that is pretty good too, because there are no packaging materials to waste, no factories producing more goods, it is just glorified recycling. I take our outgrown clothes to consignment shops, and trade for 'new' kids' clothes. I rarely use paper towles, always just dish towels. We carpool kids to school. We have a few fancy spiral-y light bulbs. Are those the earth-friendly ones? Not really sure about that. Anyway, we are doing a few things right, but much room to improve.

Here's what Mady and I decided to do this week-

- she will walk home from a bus stop up the road afterschool. Right now I drive about three miles a day to pick her up at a different school. She'll take my cell phone so that I won't worry as much. And other kids walk the same route, too. Really safety has been the only reason that I pick her up, so we'll try it and see how nervous I get! I tend to be a bit over-protective of her, because of my own experiences in childhood.

- in her lunch, Mady will take re-useable containers that she'll just wash out, instead of 5 baggies that she throws away.

- I'll give up the pull-ups for Keston, and use them only for outings and nightime. If any of you have heard about the peeing in the grocery cart incident recently, you'll understand why I refuse to go cold turkey on this! :)

- I'll turn off my computer during the day, and only turn it on a couple times to check email. This is HUGE for me! Seriously, I check my mail 50 times a day. Sadly, it's usually only Flylady writing to me...

- We will buy all of our produce for this week at the Farmer's market on Saturday.

- We'll be more concientious of turning off lights and appliances. Our heat is already turned off for the summer, and the gas fireplace pilot is out too.

- I'll run less errands, and clump them together when I can. Maybe doing them before or after work since I am already out.

- Today I located the "no heat dry" button on the dishwasher, and I'll wash laundry only in cold water.

- Mady and I will take shorter showers. That is a big commitment! There's a lot to be done in the shower - wash, condition, shave, lather, rinse, repeat... Also, maybe the little kids could stand to have less water in their baths. Ya think?

- I'll bring my own bag to work for taking home my constant purchases. Of paper. Ohhhh.... (On the positive side - I do save every scrap of scrapbooking paper and give it to a few friends who are so grateful to make cards and stuff with it).

- Mady will find some uses for the plastic grocery bags we use, and recycle what we don't need. I never know which is worse, paper or plastic. Anyone know this?

- We'll do an even better job of recycling at home. I am good with all the bottles, cans, glass, newspapers, and boxes. I recycle loose papers if I have a stack, but often toss single papers in the trash. Home recycling is so easy. (Oops, just checked their website Turns out your are supposed to flatten all the bottles and cans. Sheesh, no wonder ours are always over-flowing. My regimen involved waiting until the bin is so full they fall out, then I accidently run over them when I park in the garage. Perfect, flattened!)

OK. that's our list for now. I'll have Mady give an update in a few days. Happy low-impact week. (I'd send you a card, but it seems wasteful.)